The Curious Traveller
by selador31
Summary: As the end of the world approaches, the Doctor on one of his many travels meets a lonely girl.


He said he was a traveller, just a curious traveller.

The day he wandered into my life was a day like any other. A day of tests and training, examinations and experiments, clean corridors and nameless sentients in white lab coats. A day like the thousand days that passed before it, until he came.

...

"30 minutes to Earth-death."

_..._

_He is standing at a door to a storeroom, in a corridor far from any that are used – except, of course, by me._

_Just standing here, as though he does not know that this is a place where no strangers come, as though locked doors and unsleeping guards are no obstacle to him. _

_Just standing here, and as I reach out my hand he asks, what do you call yourself, as though his right to be here is undisputable. _

_I answer unthinking, and he replies in kind. Then the words begin to stream – where are we, what is the year, what type of lock is on this door, where has everyone gone, what are you doing here, and do you like my shoes?_

_I hear only the first two questions, for how can he not know?_

_This is the Sirius Medical Facility, and the year is 5 billion A.D._

_This year, the Earth dies. _

...

"25 minutes to Earth-death."

...

That was not the last time I saw him. Sometimes it was only a glimpse, a flash of colour at the edge of sight, or a sound half heard in waking.

But there were other times, minutes snatched and hours stolen, conversation and laughter, and dare I say it, friendship?

...

"20 minutes to Earth-death."

...

_Sometimes I tell him of my life, sixteen years spent here and knowledge of no other home. Captivity and watching eyes, a feeling that I cannot name._

Loneliness.

_He barely whispers the word, but something in his voice draws my eyes to his, to see him truly for the first time. _

_I look for a long moment, and know my loneliness is nothing compared to his. Everything I have felt, imprisonment and solitude and helplessness, he has known a thousand-fold. _

_I dare not ask him why._

_Another time I tell him of who I am, last human and final child of Earth. I speak of the voices, legacy of my forebears and a thousand centuries' stasis. I tell him of _them_, uncaring faces and cold voices and gloved limbs. I know he has known all the same._

_In return he tells me of the Universe. He fills my dreams with people he has known, cities he has seen. He speaks of the past, present and future, and endless cups of tea. He teaches me of words that have so much meaning: joy and sadness, fear and hope, pain and rage and love and so many more. _

_One day he tells me I am beautiful, and I ask him what that means. _

...

"15 minutes to Earth-death."

...

It did not take long for _them_ to perceive the change. There were subtle questions and pointed comments, watchers in places there had never been before. I tried to pretend nothing had changed, but how could I feign ignorance of so much more?

And so in lonely corridors and deserted passageways we plotted an escape. There would only be one time I could ever leave the Facility, a time that was soon to pass and which would never come again. Therefore I let it be known to _them _I wished to witness the Earth-death, and how could they deny it of me, last child of the planet?

...

"10 minutes to Earth-death."

_And so, at last, I find myself here. We stand at the window, watching this fragile turquoise jewel afloat in the timeless, lightless sea of space, this treasure that in a few brief moments will be but a memory. _

_My homeworld. _

We_ stand, I say, for I am surrounded by people. These are not the ordinary beings of the universe, these Prince-Admirals of Andromeda, Seven Lords of the Cygnus System, king-concubines of the Triangulum. But they are people, the first aside from him I have ever seen. _

_And they will not be the last, for the time of my escape draws near. _

"5 minutes to Earth-death."

_As the tension grows among us, he passes behind me, drops something in my hand. It is hard to believe such a small thing will be my salvation. _

_I consider the planet below. I can feel one of those emotions he has told me of:_

_Regret._

_Regret that I will never set foot upon the Earth, regret that I will never touch the ground and smell the air of my ancestral home, unchanged since the day we left it. Regret that I cannot remain to witness its end, ultimate fall of the dominion of man. _

"Earth-death commencing."

_It is time._

_All eyes are upon the Earth as I clutch the device and depress the key. A tingling sensation pricks my fingers and slowly, slowly, consumes me. As sight fades and sound dies, this is what I see:_

_The Sun shudders, shakes, convulses. The fire of its surface burns brighter, brighter to a blinding white and bursts outwards to melt the crackling barriers that have bound it for so long. Flames of red and gold and colours indescribable race outwards as the mighty star roars in a silent voice of terror and glory "I AM FREED!" _

_Mercury dies, Venus dissolves, and before a second has passed it is Earth's turn. Flames envelope it – the betrayed planet. Atmosphere burns, oceans blaze in a flicker of steam. Lands that once were held so dear ignite, and for the briefest moment the molten core is laid bare. _

_Then it is gone, banished to memory and eternity._

_Tingling fades to coldness, all senses are lost. I am a thought, bodiless, alone, in an infinite darkness. Time is meaningless. I swim in death. _

_..._

_I wake. _

_The air is warm. I feel softness under me. A sound of water fills my ears. There is light._

_He is here. We are still in the Milky Way, he tells me, in the COROT-7 system. He doesn't remember this planet's name. _

_I open my eyes. There is grass, and sun, and sky. There are no walls or roof, no nameless faces and watching eyes. _

_I turn to him and smile, because at last, I know this:_

_I am free. _

...

The years that have passed since we met are many.

He would say, many as the leaves that fall in the autumn, many as the stars in the sky, though time to you is not as it is to me.

I think this is true. We have travelled so long, but not always together. Sometimes he speaks of things that I have no recall, and is blank when I talk of others. If space is no hindrance to him, he who walks where no others do, why then should time be not the same?

He is so much. Bringer of darkness and oncoming storm, lonely god and destroyer of worlds, I have heard him named. What I call him is not his name, he who is saviour and liberator and father and friend.

He is so much. He tells no-one his name, saying that he is not worthy of it, saying that he is only one thing:

He says he is a traveller. Just a curious traveller.


End file.
